Unusual proteins in Giardia duodenalis and their role in survival

RÓPOLO, ANDREA S.; FELIZIANI, CONSTANZA; TOUZ, MARÍA C.

ADVANCES IN PARASITOLOGY.

ELSEVIER ACADEMIC PRESS INC

Año: 2019 vol. 106 p. 1 - 1

0065-308X

he capacity of the parasite Giardia duodenalis to perform complex functions with minimal amounts of proteins and organelles has attracted increasing numbers of scientists worldwide, trying to explain how this parasite adapts to internal and external changes to survive. One explanation could be that G. duodenalis evolved from a structurally complex ancestor by reductive evolution, resulting in adaptation to its parasitic lifestyle. Reductive evolution involves the loss of genes, organelles, and functions that commonly occur in many parasites, by which the host renders some structures and functions redundant. However, there is increasing data that Giardia possesses proteins able to perform more than one function. During recent decades, the concept of moonlighting was described for multitasking proteins, which involves only proteins with an extra independent function(s). In this chapter, we provide an overview of unusual proteins in Giardia that present multifunctional properties dependi